I am a business psychologist interested in personality profiling, leadership development, and people analytics. I am the CEO at Hogan Assessments and a Professor of Business Psychology at University College London (UCL) and Columbia University. I am the co-founder of metaprofiling.com and the author of Confidence: How much you really need and how to get it.

The Business Of Lying (Or Fooling Others To Remain Honest To Yourself)

Despite the fact that society preaches honesty, we are trained to lie, already as kids. Dr. Kang Lee, the director of the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto, classifies children’s lies into three main categories:

lies that enable them to get along with others, by being kind (e.g., “You are very pretty,” “Your cake was delicious”)

As adults, we continue to rely on these three types of lies. The first two are indicative of social adjustment and indispensable to get by in society – although it is taboo to admit this, and despite the fact that others will punish you when they think you are being fake. On the other hand, self-deceiving lies are problematic because they distort reality at the expense of maintaining a positive self-view, which will sooner or later clash with how other people see you. Competent people are able to lie when needed, and being aware of their lies helps them remain truthful to themselves. Accordingly, the more honest you think you are, the more delusional you are likely to be. Conversely, when you are consciously trying to fake it, you are probably aware of what you really think, and who you really are.

Contrary to popular belief, it is more advantageous to fake modesty than confidence. Americans are more accepting of self-promotion than any other nation, and they also tolerate self-deception more than other societies do. This explains the compelling nature (in the US) of messages such as “just be yourself,” “don’t worry about what others think of you,” and “whatever others say, if you think you are great, you are great”. Although displaying high levels of self-confidence is a common presentational strategy in America – unlike, for instance, in Sweden, Finland, Korea and Japan – scientific evidence clearly suggests that whatever confidence surplus people perceive (surpassing your actual competence) is a toxic asset. In other words, the minute people perceive that you have more confidence than competence, your assertiveness will work against you.

The simple fact is that self-promoters tend to be perceived as arrogant, and that people are much more likely to be admired, respected, and loved when they avoid self-claims of competence. Truly talented individuals let their qualities speak for themselves, but since talent is rare, we are not used to dealing with such people. Although high self-confidence can be used to mask one’s limitations and weaknesses, it is easier to do so by being modest and displaying low confidence. In fact, higher social confidence is mistaken for competence only by those who are unable to accurately judge competence, and even then it would be easier to get others to like you by avoiding blatant self-promotion and arrogance.

Thus, if you are competent, there’s no need to enhance your talents with extra displays of hubris; if you are not, faking confidence will only help you disguise your weaknesses for a limited time and with a limited number of people (who don’t know better anyway). By the same token, when competence is coupled with modesty and a splash of insecurity, you will be able to not just impress others but also gain their sympathy.

A final point of consideration concerns the personal, short-term, advantages of fooling others, which do come at a price: namely the long-term disadvantages for others. Consider the case of incompetent experts who often flourish because of their clients’ inability to discern between confidence and competence. The better these self-proclaimed (ignorant) experts do, the more society suffers. Such charlatan self-promoters tend to fall into two categories. The first is people who believe their own hype – the self-deluded ones. The second is people who are consciously making stuff up, in a deliberate attempt to deceive others – the bull*****rs. It is tempting to see the former as more moral and ethical, but their irrationality and persuasiveness is more likely to harm others.

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